


Fallen

by Elsin



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Missing Scene, World Between Worlds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:55:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23325109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsin/pseuds/Elsin
Summary: Ben Solo falls into the abyss.  He doesn't land on Exegol.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6
Collections: Worldbuilding Exchange 2020





	Fallen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fairleigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fairleigh/gifts).



Ben Solo falls. The name Kylo Ren is gone from him—he gave it up, as he once gave up Ben—and he is falling.

This is because Palpatine, who doesn’t have the decency to  _ just stay dead, _ threw him off a cliff, of course, and Ben is battered and aching and—

And has, quite frankly, been falling for far longer than feels right. Around him the world has turned a depthless black, and thin white lines run through it, curved and straight, and Ben can’t follow them properly. He’s still falling, after all.

He lands, far more softly than he ought to have, on a black surface, edged in white lines that stretch as far as the eye can see. Faint ripples echo out from his position.

All is quiet. All is still. Ben Solo sits for a little while—how long he does not know—and tries to soothe his aching body and racing mind.

After a time he realizes that he’s not just on a surface but a path of sorts, visually indistinguishable from the depthless darkness around him but framed in the light. It seems an apt metaphor for his life. To leave the path would be folly, though he knows not how he learned this.

He stands. His aches and pains are different, fading into the background; far away he sees a flash of blue fire and two phantom figures. They vanish before he can get a better look, and an owl’s call echoes in his ears.

The more he looks, the more this place seems to unfurl all around him, stretching far into the distance-that-is-not. His heartbeat sounds in his ears; without that, there would be no keeping time in this place.

Maybe there still isn’t.

But in the distance-that-is-not he sees something other than white lines on the black, and so he starts walking towards it. It’s not as if he has anywhere else to go, or any better idea of where this might lead.

He doesn’t tire as he walks, and his battered body doesn’t grow worse or better as he goes. Eventually he gets close enough to see that this other thing is a circle at the end of a path, with shapes moving beyond it; he moves closer and sees that those shapes are  _ himself _ —his own younger self—and Uncle Luke, on the fateful night that set him irrevocably on this path.

Ben draws nearer to the circle, this window through time and space, and reaches out—maybe, if he can reach his younger self, he can—

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

He flinches sharply at the youthful voice—he did not sense the other being through the Force—and turns to see a boy standing there, no older than twelve or so, with bright teal eyes and long green hair in twin braids.

“Wouldn’t do what?”

“Wouldn’t interfere.”

“Why shouldn’t I? I could change things—fix what I’ve done, if that really  _ is _ a younger me.”

“Hmm,” says the boy. “You know, I don’t actually know what would happen if you did? I’ve never seen someone actually try to change something they already lived through. I don’t think it would be good, though.”

“What are you talking about?” The boy’s words are cryptic; Ben doesn’t quite know what he could mean, though he has a suspicion that it has something to do with the nature of this place.

“Didn’t your  _ masters _ ever tell you about a world between worlds? I  _ know _ Palpatine knows of it, at least.”

Ben laughs humorlessly at  _ that _ remark. “Palpatine never taught me anything. He certainly never mentioned a place like  _ this _ .” He pauses. “Who are you, anyway?”

The boy gives an elaborate bow. “Jacen Syndulla, at your service,” he says.

_ Syndulla. _ The name is ever-so-slightly familiar, though he can’t place it at the moment. But he’s definitely heard it before.

He puts the matter aside to address Jacen. “Why are you here? Why now—did you mean to meet me here?”

“No,” says Jacen. “And I’m not— _ here _ and  _ now _ aren’t really concepts that play nicely with the world between worlds.”

There’s another window, not nearly as distant as this one was from where he fell, and if he squints Ben can barely make out his and Rey’s battle against Snoke’s red-clad guards. He looks at that window, and glances back at the one he and Jacen are near, and thinks he’s maybe beginning to understand what that’s supposed to mean.

“You didn’t answer my question about  _ why _ ,” says Ben.

“There are doorways everywhere, if you know how to look.” Jacen shrugs. “I always just follow the wolves, but I don’t think that would work for anyone else.”

“I fell,” says Ben, and Jacen snorts.

“I think we all know  _ that _ ,” he says.

“No, I mean—I fell into this place. I didn’t mean to come here.”

“Most people don’t.”

Another window unfolds, and all he can see in it is Rey—eyes wide, slowly blinking, lips moving. There’s no sound through the window. And he wants to go to her, but—

He fell. He fell, so he’s not  _ really _ there with her as he should be, and maybe he shouldn’t interfere.

She’ll rally. She’s stronger than him, stronger than he’s ever been—he fell, after all, and she did not. She can make it out of this. And yet—

“How do you leave this place?” he asks Jacen, who’s been standing there, quietly regarding him, wrapping one braid around his hand.

“The wolves lead me out,” he says. “But for you—I’d look for a door. Maybe not the one you came through, unless you think you can fly.”

And of course, Ben can’t. Maybe someone better-versed in the use of the Force could, someone who’d dedicated themselves to creation instead of destruction, but  _ he _ can’t.

He swallows and nods. “Thank you,” he says, and oh, those words are  _ odd _ in his mouth, almost painfully foreign, but they need to be said.

“I—you’re welcome,” says Jacen, with an odd closed look on his face. Ben could interrogate that further, but there isn’t the time, even in this timeless place.

Instead he turns to go, walking down the starless paths, away from Jacen Syndulla and the doorways to the past.

He walks on and on. Windows appear to either side of him, but none of them are right; the knowledge is not something he knows how he came by. He walks down the path, and stops only when it reaches its end.

There are two windows, two gates back into the world. One shows a planet’s surface, high rounded hills and rippling grass fields, and a shining city in the distance; the other shows shadows and stone and practically emanates darkness.

He knows which one he  _ wants _ to step out of. And he could do it. It would be easy—just step out into the sunshine and leave all his past behind him. But of course it isn’t that simple—there’s Palpatine, and his monstrous fleet, and those two things must be stopped. And Rey is there, too, as she will not be if he takes the easy way out.

This choice might be the death of him, but in the end it’s really no choice at all.

Rey is waiting for him, up above, and she is his other half and he cannot leave her.

Ben Solo turns to the gateway, steps out from the world between worlds.

He goes back.


End file.
